Elihu: He Delivers the Afflicted by Affliction
1 Elihu also continued, and said, 2 “Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on God’s behalf. 3 I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 4 For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you. 5 “Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding. 6 He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked, but gives justice to the afflicted. 7 He doesn’t withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, he sets them forever, and they are exalted. 8 If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions, 9 then he shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly. 10 He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity. 11 If they listen and serve him, they will spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. 12 But if they don’t listen, they will perish by the sword; they will die without knowledge. 13 “But those who are godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when he binds them. 14 They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean. 15 He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression. 16 Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, into a wide place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness. 17 “But you are full of the judgment of the wicked. Judgment and justice take hold of you. 18 Don’t let riches entice you to wrath, neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside. 19 Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength? 20 Don’t desire the night, when people are cut off in their place. 21 Take heed, don’t regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction. 22 Behold, God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? 23 Who has prescribed his way for him? Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness’? 24 “Remember that you magnify his work, about which men have sung. 25 All men have looked on it. Man sees it afar off. 26 Behold, God is great, and we don’t know him. The number of his years is unsearchable. 27 For he draws up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor, 28 which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly. 29 Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds and the thunderings of his pavilion? 30 Behold, he spreads his light around him. He covers the bottom of the sea. 31 For by these he judges the people. He gives food in abundance. 32 He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. 33 Its noise tells about him, and the livestock also, concerning the storm that comes up.
Elihu's best sentence is that God rescues people by means of the trouble itself, and his worst is the claim to perfect knowledge.
The speech opens with a claim that should be weighed carefully: one who is perfect in knowledge is with you Job 36:4.
If he means himself, it is the most arrogant line in the book. If he means God, it is the plain truth — and the whirlwind speech will shortly ask who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Job 38:2, which is the phrase Elihu has just used of somebody in the room.
His argument this time is about the purpose of affliction, and it is the best account of it in the poem. Men bound in fetters and taken in the cords of afflictions are not being paid out; they are being shown something. God shows them their work, and opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return Job 36:8–10.
The trouble is a summons, and it is not the final word. The outcome depends on the response: those who listen will spend their days in prosperity, and those who do not will die without knowledge Job 36:11–12.
Then the sentence the chapter exists for, and it is one of the finest in Scripture. He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression Job 36:15.
Not from the affliction — by it. The suffering is the instrument of the rescue rather than the obstacle to it, and the hearing happens inside the pressure rather than after it lifts. Every other speaker has treated suffering as a bill to be explained. Elihu treats it as a means, and he is closer to the truth of chapters 1 and 2 than anyone else gets.
The limits of it should also be said. Elihu still assumes there is something in Job to be corrected, and God has already stated that the ruin had no cause in him Job 2:3. The mechanism is right and the diagnosis is wrong.
One verse admits more than the friends ever did: God is great, and we don't know him. The number of his years is unsearchable Job 36:26.
And then the speech turns to weather, and stays there. God draws up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor Job 36:27 — an accurate description of evaporation and rainfall, given as an example of something ordinary and beyond understanding.
The clouds spread, the thunder rolls, the lightning is commanded to strike the mark Job 36:29 Job 36:32. By these things he judges the people. He gives food in abundance Job 36:31 — the same storm ruins and feeds, and Elihu will not separate the two.
The last line notices that the animals know it is coming Job 36:33. A storm is building over the conversation while he speaks, and the next voice out of it is not his.
settled What this mark means